9.20.2011

Theme: Gimme an I! Gimme an O! Gimme … an A? Wait, what about the W?? — Each theme answer is a three-word phrase where each word has three of the same letters and the fourth letter alternates I to O to A. If that makes any sense.

Theme answers:

20A: Hullabaloo over a sudden policy reversal? (FLIP FLOP FLAP).

33A: Sign of table tennis tendonitis? (PING PONG PANG).

42A: Bit of applause for an equestrian event? (CLIP CLOP CLAP).

58A: Cry of frustration about a Hostess cake? (DING DONG DANG).

Super cute theme today. I like it when the theme answers are fun to say. Modifying the word dang seems like a stretch, but whatever! DING DONG DANG. It's fun to say so who cares?

Bullets:

14A: Coif makeup (HAIR). A coif is made up of HAIR.

25A: Legendary Chicago cow owner (O'LEARY). I seem to recall some question about this entry last time we saw it. Mrs. O'LEARY is supposedly the owner of the cow that started the Great Chicago Fire of whatever year that was. I believe there is at least one song about it.

32A: Co. bigwig (CEO). The abbreviation in the clue indicates that the answer will also be an abbreviation.

40A: Half of a double play (OUT). Did y'all see the baseball news yesterday? Mariano Rivera broke the career saves record with his 602nd save. He's so awesome. The New York Times had a picture of him smiling, which isn't really typical.

64A: Snug ... bug in ___ (A RUG). Now this right here? This is an ugh-ly clue. The clue couldn't use all the words in the first part of the phrase because they include the word "a," which is also in the answer. To get around that, someone thought it was a good idea to use an ellipses. Ouch!

70A: Iowa State's city (AMES). Sigh.

4D: Make ready, briefly (PREP). The clue doesn't mean that you would briefly make something ready, it means that the answer is going to be a brief (i.e., shortened) form of the word.

23 comments:

Anonymous
said...

There was also some nice symmetry in the theme answers with #1 & #3 being -LIP -LOP -LAP, and #2 & #4 being -ING -ONG -ANG.However, this puzzle was almost too easy - like a Monday-lite. Was this in the Kid Pages today?Nice little shout-out to our esteemed editor, though.

The Oxford comma is an optional comma placed before the "and" at the end of a list (as in @Mac's example).

Although it's perfectly OK to use it exactly as shown in @Mac's example, its real purpose is to clarify when the list is not just single items - for example "The Harley-Davidson comes in classic colors such as black and silver, white and gold, and blue and chrome". With out the Oxford comma it would be possible to read the last two color options as "white and gold and blue" and "chrome".

Cute theme! For some reason, I started in the middle and went south. Figured out the theme and as I moved up north, I had enough to fill in FLIP FLOP FLAP before even reading the clue...assumed it would be a reference to flip-flop sandals. Momentarily had MEAL instead of MENU for the waiter's handout. Always have a hard time remembering STRAFE which shows up periodically.

I love the oxford comma, every time I use one I feel powerful, like I can make a bunch of people cringe on command. But remember, kids, with great power comes great responsibility, diligence, and fortitude.

Cute, cute. I like it a lot. Maybe I will add DINGDONGDANG to my vocabulary as an expression of mild frustration. The puzzle felt largely like a Monday. I didn't even see CALICOS until I reviewed the puzzle now. And I have one.

I am strongly in favor of the Oxford comma and I almost always use it. But I suspect it will die out as younger writers eschew any extra keystrokes.